whose rights to it preceded his, he worked his utmost to induce his vassals to come and fight against those of the city, and expose themselves to the same danger and hardship as we ourselves. He spoke with his brothers, six or seven in number, all well disposed, beseeching them to bring all the people of their lordships to help me. »He sent one of them, called Istrisuchil, who is twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, very brave, beloved and feared of all, as captain, who arrived at the camp on the causeway with more than thirty thousand warriors, very well supplied in their fashion, and another twenty thousand joined the other two camps.[1] I received them gladly, thanking them for their good disposition and conduct. Your Cæsarian Majesty may well judge how valuable was this help and friendship from Don Fernando, and how those of Temixtitan felt it, to see those whom they considered their vassals, friends, relatives, and even fathers, brothers, and sons, marching against them.
Fighting went on in the city for two days, as I have said above. As soon as these people came to our help, the natives of Suchimilco, which is on the lake, and some Utumie[2]tribes who are a mountain people, more nu-
- ↑ The Mexican historian, Ixtlilxochitl, contradicts Cortes on this point, affirming that the boy-king Fernando was already dead, and that his brother Ixtlilochitl reigned. Both these princes bore the same Christian name of Fernando, hence the natural and unimportant confusion of their identity, but, as Cortes says nothing of the first one's death, which he could have no motive in misrepresenting, and distinguishes very clearly between the two, his version, given at the time, must prevail over that of a later writer. The same chronicler claims that Ixtlilochitl fought throughout the siege with the Spaniards, performing prodigies of valour, and he reproaches Cortes for suppressing all mention of these services in his despatches, and for failing to recompense him and his people after the victory to which their valour so largely contributed (Orozco y Berra, lib. iii., cap. vi.).
- ↑ Otomies: tribes inhabiting the mountain regions to the west. Orozco y Berra gives June nth as the probable date of their arrival in the camp.
